


Eyes I Dare Not Meet In Dreams

by Smaragdina



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 23:31:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smaragdina/pseuds/Smaragdina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You used to be so passionate, my dear. You were hammered down to a single purpose. It was lovely. You burned.” The chaos is over and Corvo is at peace; the Outsider, however, grows bored. Postgame. (Now with art!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eyes I Dare Not Meet In Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a line from T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men."
> 
> Thanks to pungafruit on Tumblr for the fantastic art of this fic! See it [here](http://ladysmaragdina.tumblr.com/post/35419457124/pungafruit-fanart-for-smaragdina-of-her).

Corvo’s old room high in Dunwall Tower is several times the size of his cell down in Colderidge prison, but the feel of it – tonight – is the same. He paces. Window to desk, desk to bed, back again, wearing a track in the rug, around and around and around as if there are bars on the door in truth; the feel is the same and the cadence of his steps is the same, the way he turns sharp on his heel and keeps his hands curled tight in fists.

His left hand, especially. Right over left, knuckles pale, hiding the back of his hand from sight.

He is the Lord Protector, after all, now and again. And he wears the Lord Protector’s coat and shackles, and his face is not a skull, and his name is finally – _finally_ – his own; and the dawn will break on Emily’s coronation. And her hard-won rule is far too fragile to be sullied in hands the bear a mark such as his. He paces, paces, paces.

And in the small hours before dawn he dons his mask and blinks his way out the window and up the battlement and over, out into the sleeping city. It is an hour or more before he finds a shop with what he needs – gloves, blue-black to go with his fresh-cleaned coat, soft and supple leather. They fit over his hands like skin. He pays, he leaves, and the trip back to the Tower is a quiet one.

He spends the rest of the not-quite-morning in his room. The doors are locked. The curtains drawn. He practices blinking back and forth between the window and the desk and back. For he who is walked in the skin of other men and bent the flow of time to his will, it is barely a show of power at all – and he is _furious_ to find that the mark on his hand flares bright through the gloves, each and every time.

There is only one thing to do, then.

Corvo takes off the mask. Considers it. Considers the high fall off his balcony, the roar of the sea below, the rocks that can smash small boats to pieces. He pulls at the glove on his left hand, fusses at it, and he turns away from the window and places the mask high on a shelf in the back of his wardrobe – it feels _wrong_ and there is a sick feeling in his throat and the fall is so, so tempting, but there may be a day when Emily needs his self who murders in the dark. Not now, though. Not for years and years. Not ever.

He pulls and fusses at the glove and then he straightens. Nods. Stuffs his hands in his coat pockets and walks down the stairs like a normal man, whistling, the other mask falling back into place.

*****

It takes half a year before the Outsider finds him.

 _“What happened?”_ he asks.  It is not really a question. There is an edge to that voice that is usually so whisper-smooth. The light that falls on him from the high arched windows is uncanny blue, and Corvo knows that if he rises from bed and looks outside he will find the entire tower swept away and madness floating in its place. He props himself up on his elbows and listens as the sharp note in the other man’s voice grows and grows. “You’ve become boring,” he hisses. “You’ve become just another pawn at court. Standing beside her throne, thwarting plots, playing your little human games. It’s like you have no powers at all. _Boring_. I gave you my Mark because you were _interesting_. I _only_ give my Mark to those who are interesting. I _told_ you. I expect a _show_.”

“I gave you a show,” Corvo snaps. “That was then. This is now.” He waves a hand to take in the tower around them, so still and finally at peace. He gestures at his face. “I _can’t_ anymore.”

“Careful, Corvo.” The man flickers and blinks and then he is before him, hovered in the air not a handbreadth from his face. “I don’t take kindly to the word _can’t_.”

*****

They flood her with advisors. Nobles, scholars, tutors, all – they come before Emily’s throne and get on bended knee to be of height to look the young girl in the eye. It is a veritable storm of plots and lies and grabs for power, and Corvo watches it all. It is his duty. He is the Lord Protector. Much of this duty is done through shadow and keyhole and secret door, yes, unseen, because the men who come to court may still look at his face and see a skull – but he watches.

He watches as a normal man.

The gloves are cool on his hands. It gains him no favors to bend time, to flit around like a ghost, to turn himself into a rat and follow the men with lying eyes and listen to them make their plots. That is the realm of Spymasters (who must, this time, be honest). That is the realm of things unholy.  His reputation is dark and deathly enough as it is, and he is _done_ with causing chaos. He does not need to stir the turmoil swirling around Emily’s fragile throne with the rumor of _witchcraft_.

He keeps his hands gloved and hidden and still and clasped behind his back, and he watches.

And so does _he_.

Corvo can tell, from the way that other’s eyes slide off and away like oil slick, that he is the only one who can see the man who stands in the back of the room. It relieves him less than it should. The Outsider is silent. He does nothing. His eyes are dark. His hands, like Corvo’s own, stay still and clasped behind his back. Corvo knows from bitter experience, now, how to read the minds of men from the way they hold themselves; and he recognizes it as the attitude of a man who is not afraid. It is the attitude of a man who has nothing to hide.

It is the attitude of a man who is waiting.

Corvo does nothing and watches, watches, watches, and the Outsider does as well. And the court pours in. The madness is put aright. The Empire rights itself. The interregnum that had long since drawn to a close finds itself some measure of stability to follow. There are regents to rule in Emily’s stead and shadow, many instead of one so as not to tempt them with power. There are men appointed to take the place of those who fell by Corvo’s blade: a new spymaster. New members of Parliament. A new head torturer, who is a whip-thin and wicked man to whom Corvo vows to never speak.

A new Watch-Captain, Geoff Curnow, who smiles at Corvo each time he passes.

A new High Overseer.

He is a man who gained by devotion what Campbell and Martin had stolen by deception – and from what little Corvo can gather, he is also _honest_. This makes him trustworthy. It makes him _dangerous_ , as well, and Corvo finds himself slipping further into shadows whenever the man comes to court to speak of plague and judgment. Finds himself holding right hand over left when the man gets on bended knee before the little Empress and her advisors and begs, with words like _order_ and _morale_ , for measures to root out witches.

And where Corvo shrinks back, the Outsider moves forward.

He steps up behind the man and lays a hand upon his half-bent head. The High Overseer does not scream or shudder or twitch. He does not notice at all. Corvo is the only one to see as the Outsider leans down and whispers something in his ear.

And the High Overseer’s voice cracks, once, on _witchwork_ , and he looks up – and his gaze is fixed on Corvo.

*****

 There is a time, after that, when he does not sleep.

It is nerves, only. The rumors grow hungry and dark and roiling as swarms of rats, but this is all they do. And he is careful, ever careful. He can feel the Outsider _watching_ as he stands behind or beside her throne each day with hands that are still and hidden from view and lets the rumors roll off like rain. He has weathered worse before; if he can clear his name after the death of an Empress, he will not lose that same name to something light as this.

There is a quiet investigation into the whys and _hows_ of the things he has done, the men he has killed, the peculiar shadows he has walked. But Emily blocks it at every turn, voice pitching high in indignation. And so if he does not sleep it is nerves, only. He does not fear, he does not plot, he does not plan. He will no longer cause chaos but restore it. He will not give in and give a _show_. He meets the Outsider’s eye across a throne room full of people who cannot see and he nods, once.

The man does not nod back.

His eyes are dark and empty as death, and his hands are clasped behind his back – and Corvo knows, with a prickle of unease down his spine, that he is _waiting_ and he cannot wait forever.

*****

The rumors grow and shriek and gnaw at him like rats in the dark, and the Outsider waits, and there is a long game of doing nothing. And the rumors, like rats, are hungry. And, like rats, there comes a time when they swirl down into the darkness and the drain where better men do not see.

And Corvo sleeps.

He sleeps  – and in the morning he wakes to a weight on the foot of his bed. He opens his eyes to find the Outsider sitting there, crosslegged, calm. Narrow hands resting on his knees.

He is covered in paint.

It is everywhere. All of it white. There are streaks upon his clothes and his face and in his ragged hair.

Corvo stares.

He stares, frozen – because the Outsider’s eyes are on himand the room is filthy with paint, so white, the letters tall and freshly shining. The script is the same haphazard scrawl that he’s seen in Weeper buildings. And what it says (on wall, on door, on windowframe; on desk and chest and ceiling) is this:

_BORING BORING BORING BORING BORING._

“Good morning, Corvo.”

He hisses a curse and _moves_ – and the Outsider springs forward, quick as a snake, hand around his throat and pinning him down by the collarbone and the weight of the man’s thin frame stretched over his. The man is not heavy, not even a _man_ , all bone in sinew and shadow, and he should _not_ be able to hold him down like this; but hold him down he does. The hand on Corvo’s throat is cold. He finds his eyes skittering away from his face, _anywhere_ but, up to the words that are even on the ceiling.

_BORING BORING BORING BORING BORING._

He is _frozen_ – and he is not quite sure if the prickle and spark that goes over his skin is fear, or _fear_ of the man holding him down, the fear of being _held down_ with bars on the door, the feel of the man pressing him _down_ on the bed.

“They’ll kill me,” he manages, ice and fear and that cold cold hand on his throat. “What are you – they’ll think I’m mad –”

“- Or a witch, perhaps? It can be so difficult to tell them apart. Just look at your dear Granny Rags.” The Outsider’s face is mild, emotionless. If there is a smile in his eyes, the eyes are far too dark for Corvo to tell. “I told you I wanted a show. You haven’t delivered.”

_BORING BORING BORING BORING BORING._

Corvo nods once. Tight.

“Good.” Sudden smile blazing like a plague-body fire, teeth so white against a white-streaked face. And he leans down.

His lips are dry. They do not taste of rot or gravedirt or death. Only paint. Salt and chalk. The kiss is quick, chaste, utterly so – and before Corvo can even think to respond the man has vanished. He is alone. The paint melts from the walls in long, ghostly lines.

 _I_ , say the letters before they disappear entirely. Utterly selfish. _I, I, I._

He is alone, and there is only the salt-bitter taste of paint on the corner of his mouth to tell that the other was ever there at all.

*****

Geoff Curnow watches him, he’s sure of it. The man claims he has no memory of the night that Corvo saved him from Campbell’s poison with a well-placed shot from the shadows. Corvo remembers it well, of course; though the fact that he’d had to carry the man out of the Abbey (slung over his shoulder like a slab of wet meat and drooling all over his coat) is only a small fraction of the reason.

Curnow has no memory.

At least, that is what the new Watch-Captain says in public.

Corvo has never been a man to spend his nights in bars, in pubs, shoulder to shoulder with other men. He was the Protector and an assassin and now the Protector again, and his place has always been in the shadows; and after six months in Coldridge Prison even the light of twilight stung his eyes and even a touch on the shoulder would sometimes make him flinch. But if his place is to be at court, then it is also to wear that particular mask. If he is to guard the Empress then he is to know the men who serve her, closely, watch them as closely as he watches her herself, know their moods and the way they talk when they are drunk and stay silent when sober. _Not_ watching was a mistake he made once. He will not make it again.

Not with the rumors of _witchwork_ lying sidelong in the High Overseer’s eyes. Not with the taste of paint on his mouth.

And so this is why he finds himself in the darkened corner of the Hound Pits pub with Watch-Captain Curnow, attempting and repeatedly failing to pay Samuel for their drinks and turning the conversation by degrees away from reconstruction and toward the things the man is not supposed to know.

“The thing I can’t figure about that night,” says Curnow at last, slumped over his third or fifth beer in the of the night, “the thing I can’t figure is…I woke up, alright, just for a moment, on the roof of the apartment across from the Abbey, and I remember you’d _jumped_ there, but that’s a gap of like twenty meters, you can’t…” He studies the bottom of his glass, intently. The words are a struggle. “You _can’t_.”

“You were drugged,” says Corvo, soft and rational and insistent.

“Drugged. Yeah. You know what they say about you, huh?”

“You were drugged. It’s understandable. I climbed.”

“The street, there’s floodlights…”

“I climbed.” Corvo feels  himself give a little twitch as if there is a strange frequency in the room. He looks up. Finds himself looking into the flat dark eyes of the stranger who has just walked in the door. The man is thin and shabby and has shadows clinging to his skin, and Corvo knows without looking around that he is the only one who can see him. As ever. All desire to _watch_ goes out of him like wind from the sails of a ship. He wets his lips. “Why are we still talking about this?”

Curnow eyes him sidelong, shakes his head. “Nevermind,” he says. “Nevermind.” His fingers curl tight around his glass. Corvo watches the way the knuckles of his hands go white, fusses with the dark gloves on his own.

Curnow drinks. Corvo does not. And the shadows around the black-eyed man in the corner stretch across the room with a sound like glass breaking – and Curnow gives a _shiver_ and looks up.

“You know,” says the Watch-Captain (words only slightly slurred, voice only _slightly_ mechanical and dull) “the Abbey’s been talking about rounding up witches…”

Corvo starts, stands, shoulders tense as razor wire. He spits out an “excuse me,” an ungraceful excuse about needing some air, and he leaves. The door clatters shut behind him. And the air, indeed, is shocking cool on his skin – but what _matters_ is the door clicking closed again as the Outsider follows him out.

“Boooor-ing,” the man who is not a man singsongs under his breath.

“Are you trying to get me killed?” he snaps.

“Killed? Oh no.” The Outsider steps lightfooted through a puddle, leaving no ripples, casting no reflection. His hands are shoved in his pockets and his shoulders are thin and the shadows on his coat might well be dirt or plague-blood or worse; he looks, for all the world, like an alleyway drunk. His eyes are bruised black pits. “I’ve been thinking,” he says, falling into step beside Corvo and blocking with his body each time he tries to turn away, “you used to be so _vibrant_ when you had something that needed protecting. It was fascinating. I’m thinking that maybe keeping your own skin from the Heretic’s Brand isn’t quite enough motivation.” Shove of fingers deeper into pockets. Eyes that blaze _dark_ as rats and rumors. “How’s the little Empress doing these days? Emily.”

Corvo goes still, feels _cold_ trickle down his spine, and the sound that wants to come out between his teeth is almost a growl.

“Because,” says the Outsider, so calm, “I’ve been thinking she could use an imaginary friend – ”

He hits him full across the face.

The Outsider stumbles back, long limbs ungainly, hand clapping tight across his cheek as Corvo stands over him with teeth clenched and knuckles stinging. He watches the man unfold himself and look up at Corvo beneath his lashes from where he’s balanced half-bent in the mud, off-kilter, free hand against the wall, gasping. There is a smear of blood on his lip and Corvo watches as his tongue flicks out to taste it, delicate. Watches the shark-smile that lights up his face.

“Well,” he chuckles, breathless, shadows dancing in dark dark eyes, “after that, I wonder what you’re going to be like when she has _mortal_ suitors – ”

He feels teeth crack against his knuckles, score the leather of his gloves, feels something give and _snap_ under his fist and the smell of blood is on the air and there are hands yanking him away –

“Corvo,” Curnow is saying, insistent in his ear. Rank smell of alcohol, hands pulling him back, low steady voice (and it’s the very same tone they used on the torturer’s rack - in prison everyone knows your name and everyone keeps it in their mouth like a friend). Corvo _snarls_. “ _Corvo_. Come on. He’s just some drunk, what in the _Void_ happened – hey, _Corvo –!”_

(The Outsider does nothing. He can see through the blind panic and the pulling away. There is a fine silk sheen of blood all down the man’s front, deep red-black, but he merely sits there still and quiet on the filthy ground. The blood fades to a whisper. The bruises have no time to blossom on his face. He is utterly unmarked. His expression is so _thoughtful_ , and Corvo is the only one to see and he cannot help the _horror_ that knifes down his spine – )

And the hands are pulling him back and leading him _away_ and there is concern on Curnow’s face, masking the suspicion, and his arm is slung tight and over-familiar on Corvo’s shoulder as he pulls him back inside to the light.

*****

Curnow watches him closely, now, and the new High Overseer as well. He can do nothing but what his place commands and so he does just that, stands tall beside her throne and offers her advice, guards her against the men with smiles like snakes and smiles like rats and smiles that are too honest, his right hand folded over left and gloves tucked carefully into the sleeves of his coat. He wears the face of a man who has nothing to hide.

The days go on.

He sees him at court, once or twice. There are no bruises blossoming blue under the black of his eyes, no cuts, no crooked nose to mark the way it had broken at the second punch. The Outsider is still. He gives him naught but steady stares across the air of the wide room, and Corvo knows that he is the only one who turns his head. It is the same as ever. It is as if he has done nothing.

( _BORING_ , said the writing on the bedroom wall. Taste of white paint a smear on his mouth. _BORING BORING  BORING_ ).

The days go on. And there comes a day when the Outsider does _not_ mouth the word _boring_ at him across the air at court; just gives him a nod and shivers back into the shadows at a glance.

And that is the night that Emily begins to dream.

*****

He only leaves her side in the dead of night. Hands still speckled with half-dry tears. He stops at his room, reaches high in the wardrobe, pulls out the mask that once fit better than his own face. He holds it in his ungloved hands as he slips out the window and blinks the rest of the way up the tower, unseen, avoiding the guard patrols who’s routes he knows better than breathing. He perches high upon the battlements, crouched. From here he can see the lights of the city spread like blue witchfire all around him. The position, the vantage point – they are familiar. Sitting like so without the mask is not.

He presses his lips together until they are bloodless and white as bone.

“I want to talk,” he tells no one, and the wind carries it away.

(Talk about Emily screaming in the night; talk about her babbling of Jessamine lying in a spreading red pool, the man standing over her with a long wet knife. He’d asked her, over and over and hating himself for asking, about the man’s face. Did he wear a mask. Could she see his face. Were his eyes straight black).

There is, of course, no response.

He turns the skull of a mask over in his hands, watches it grin up at him with a mouth that is scatter-shot sewed open without teeth. His shoulders slump.

“You said that Sokolov’s crime was thinking he could summon you,” Corvo murmurs. The mask warms in his hands. The wind makes no reply. A breath, then two; and then he presses the skull over his human face and, uncareful, flits his way down and down and down.

There are men in the Watch whom Curnow has spoken of, corrupt men, men who hid from the culling at the end of the Regent’s regime and who the city can stand to miss – and he finds them now. He finds them drinking and dicing and whoring and –

It never made him sick, before.

Not like this.

The sound of a blade as it grates past the bone in the last man’s neck is shocking loud, and the rasp of it runs up his arm as he shoves the body hard away. It hits the wall with a heavy wet thud (and what makes him _sick_ is the thrill somewhere in the pit of his stomach that has nothing to do with disgust – it is the same sharp sick burn, yes, but it carries words like _justice_ and _deserving. Pride)_.

Corvo yanks the mask away and runs a hand over his face and through his hair, only realizing a moment later that the hand is tacky with blood. His other face clatters to the floor, grins up at him, emptiness behind its eyes.

“It wasn’t that you wore a mask,” hisses a voice right by his ear. He jumps, whirls. The Outsider catches his sword in his hand as easily as if it is air and holds him there, face to face, eye to narrow eye. His voice is as cold as he has ever heard it. “It was _never_ that you wore a mask. It was that you made every wretched little rat in this city take off _theirs_.”

He kicks the mask on the floor aside. And before Corvo can think, or move, the man has caught his face between his hands and pressed his mouth to his.

It is cool and forceful and _precise_ , and the kiss smears the dead man’s blood that’s half-dried and sticky on his face. The taste is iron. The taste is sharp. The _shock_ that goes through Corvo is the same, bright and sharp and white and _red_.

And when he shoves the man away, he finds that he is only shoving empty air.

*****

The days go on and on and on, and the nightmares do not stop, and Corvo stands beside her throne and can do nothing as Emily’s face grows pale.

The nights go on as well.

“What do you want?” he asks in the dark. Voice a snarl. He is sure that he’s dreaming. It is only in the Void that the rooms are this tilted and the light is this wrong – that he can walk the halls of Dunwall Tower for hours listening to the sound of Emily’s laughter and never, ever find her.

“You used to be so passionate, my dear,” answers the Outsider evenly. His hands are clasped behind his back. “You were hammered down to a single purpose. It was lovely. You _burned_.”

 _You think I don’t anymore_? he wants to scream. He wants to hit the man in his teeth just to watch them shatter. He knows the blood will vanish like mist in the morning. He wants the taste of that blood on his tongue. He curls his left hand in a fist, uncurls it, breathes and breathes and breathes. “What,” he spits, “do you want me to do?”

“I want you to use the gift I gave you.”

Right hand clasped on left. “I _do_.”

A thin arm snakes around his shoulder and Corvo goes stiff and still. He remembers the taste of paint. He remembers the taste of blood.

“No, my dear,” says the Outsider, and his voice is soft as shadow. “I want you to use it for _me_.”

*****

The one-year anniversary of Empress Emily’s coronation is declared a holiday, and Dunwall Tower finds itself resplendent with banners and confetti and (at the young girl’s insistence) dozens upon dozens of cakes of every size and shape. There is, at the young girl’s insistence, a great deal of pomp and ceremony. There is, at her insistence, a ball.

It is a nightmare for security.

Corvo is only grateful that the ball is not masked. He knows all too well how simple it is to hide one’s thoughts behind a false face; and he does not think Dunwall would approve, so soon, of the mask he would probably have to wear. He spends the evening _pacing_. It is as if the entire tower has become a cell. He keeps his hands still and clasped behind his back, and he nods to the guests but speaks little, and he finds himself watching their hands and their faces. He finds himself watching their eyes. He finds himself looking for eyes that are black.

He does not see them.

He does not see them, even, when the room goes quiet and attentive as the men who share the role of Emily’s regent and advisors stand up to speak. Corvo is not among them, by his choice; he is standing behind the throne, as ever. Watching the backs of the men who throw out lofty words like _new age dawning_ and the faces of the aristocracy who listen, watching Emily’s feet kick back and forth a little even though she tries so hard to keep scrupulously still. It makes him smile, a bit. And Emily may not quite be able to keep still, but Corvo can.

He can, and he _does_ – even when there is a breath of air on the back of his neck, cool and light as morning mist.

Corvo closes his eyes, briefly. He does not need to turn and see to know who it is behind him. He does not need to see the faces of the audience before him to know that none of them _can_. The Outsider exists, now, for him and him alone.

“Lovely party,” says the man quietly. “Lady Boyle would die to be here, I’m sure.” Breath right against his ear. “But she was just one of those interesting little sacrifices that had to be made to put _her_ on the throne.”

Corvo’s eyebrows draw together for an instant, no more. It is not even a wince. He keeps watching the crowd as if nothing is wrong. He will not give the man the satisfaction of moving. He will not, he will _not_ give him a show.

“Tell me, Corvo. Was it worth it?”

As if he expects him to speak.

The Outsider is not touching him. Not yet, at least; not at all. This does not explain how Corvo can feel him behind him, perfectly, as if he is giving off waves of cold that sear him to the core.

 _Yes,_ he thinks, staring straight ahead. _Yes._

“Disappointing.” The Outsider’s sigh is eloquent. And –

Ah.

It takes all of Corvo’s skill not to flinch at he hand that lands ever-so-lightly on the back of his neck. He is not sure he could move if he tried. It as if he is a cat, as if his body is fixed on that point and all the strength drained out of his limbs like poison from a wound.

He does. Not. Move.

Even as the Outsider begins to walk his fingers down the line of his spine, slow, one over the other.

Corvo breathes. In and out.

“Was it worth it?” the Outsider repeats. Words light as a kiss over his ear. “You’d do it again if you had to protect her from something. Wouldn’t you. Cause all that chaos, all that passion, set this city on fire and make them curse your name again just to guard the little girl you love so much.”

His fingers are so _light_ walking down his spine, not hard enough to even truly dent the fabric of his coat, and Corvo can feel each and every touch _._ And there is a _sick_ feeling twisting in the pit of his stomach from the Outsider’s words. He can hear blood beating in his ears like thunder.

 _Protect her from you?_ he thinks with all his might.

“Me,” the Outsider agrees.

And his mouth is there against the side of Corvo’s throat.

It is so _light_ , and his lips are as cool as the lips of the dead, and Corvo cannot help but give a shudder that he hopes is invisible to the watching crowd. He counts their faces to keep himself from pulling away in a horrible display of running from nothing. The High Overseer is in the crowd, he can see. Geoff Curnow as well. Everyone. _Everyone._

And the Outsider’s hand is barely-there steady on the small of his back, and the words he speaks are like raindrops on his skin.

“What would you do,” he asks, soft against the vein in Corvo’s throat, “to protect her from me?”

Corvo swallows, hard, and the word he thinks is _stop_. It buys him a chuckle that ghosts across his skin, and the fingers that have trailed down the length of his spine begin a delicate and torture-light journey back up.

“Stop time,” says the Outsider.

_No._

Hint of teeth and Corvo gives another silent shudder.

“Now, my dear.”

_No._

The man’s teeth set against his throat, and he _bites_.

It is careful, so careful. Gentle even. And the Outsider does not let go. The pain builds from pale to red to white, steady and centering and constant as the grounding force of a Wall of Light. And still he does _not let go_. Corvo feels a tremor go through his frame. He is held fast, frozen as prey, and the air comes quick and cold through his nose and he does not dare _move_ , and he is not sure if the spark that sears down the length of his spine in the path of the Outsider’s so-soft fingers is panic or –

“Stop time,” the Outsider repeats, softly. And he shifts and bites again. Pain so delicately controlled.

This is a mark, too.

Another tremor at the thought. Someone in the crowd sees it; Curnow sees it, gives him a quizzical look that thankfully slides away at second glance. His pulse hammers in his throat. It is all he can do to keep still, to not tear away, to not – to not –

His breath comes fast, so fast.

There is a roiling hot sick sensation low in his stomach and the urge to pull away is so, so strong – and there is equal and answering heat beginning to pool at the base of his spine. The Outsider is only touching him with the whisper-soft tips of his fingers and the steady press of teeth, but he can _feel_ the man behind him as if his body is pressed against his own, all his bones laid perfectly against his; and he _shivers_ and watches the crowd and thinks, wildly, of anything _but_ the throb and pulse of pain that is no longer quite pain at his throat. Corvo closes his eyes and thinks of guard patrols, of foreign policy, of plague, of anything _– anything –_

Of the cold of metal and mask over his face and the grate of a sword on bone, gush of blood, sick swoop of _pride –_

Of the smell of blood. The taste of blood. The taste of blood smeared over his mouth.

Corvo gives a twitch as if his body is an electrical wire. Taut. It is all he can do to keep from making a _sound_.

People in the crowd see it. Curnow sees it. Emily sees the concern on the Watch-Captain’s face, too, sees his gaze and follows it, twists on her throne to look at him –

And Corvo pulls away.

He pulls his collar high around his throat and he steps away, sharp, not looking at the man behind him. He keeps his head down. His hands are in his pockets to hide the way that they are shaking. It would do no good to _run_ , and so he simply circles around the room, falling into the familiar steps of a perimeter patrol, eyes down on the floor or on the quiet crowd or _anywhere_ but the man who stands still and patient behind her throne.

And when he is in the rear of the crowd and he can feel no eyes upon him he ducks into one of the many alcoves that line the walls. It is dark, bracketed on either side by curtains. It is safe and shadowed. He presses his shaking hands to his face. The leather of his gloves is cool on his skin. His skin is damp with sweat.

He tries to calm the shaking of his hands and the hammering of his heart; tries _desperately_ to ignore the heat curling in the base of his spine and the way his eyes are drawn, horribly, to the man in the center of the room that no one else can see.

He watches the Outsider, not Emily’s advisors, as the men step back and the crowd stirs and resettles itself. He watches the Outsider, not Emily, as the little Empress gets to her feet to give a speech (the speech, he knows, is little more than _hello_ , and he can see the text of it clutched tight in her small hand). Her face is pale and he cannot tell, precisely, if this is from nerves or from lack of sleep and nightmares.

He cannot tell, because he is not _watching_.

His eyes are on the man with shadows falling from his skin who slides around her throne and steps before the crowd, unseen. He stands before the Empress. And Corvo does not need to _see_ to see the way the light catches in his black black eyes like drops of dew in a spider’s web.

The Outsider smiles at Emily.

And she stumbles, and falters, and looks up.

She looks straight at him, and her face goes pale and her eyes go _wide_ -

And Corvo feels the world come to a halt almost before it does. His breath catches in his throat, and his left hand clutches white-knuckle tight, and everything freezes. Everything – _everything_ – stops.

*****

The Outsider is suddenly _there_.

No time passes at all. The dust motes are frozen, falling. The  crowd is still as if carved from ice. Emily is caught in the moment before a scream. It is only he and the man who isn’t – who is suddenly _there_ in the shadows of the alcove where Corvo stands. Right _there_.

And he pushes him back against the wall, and his mouth is bright on his.

The kiss is _exact_. There is no passion in it, not for the Outsider. There is only purpose. He pushes Corvo against the wall with the sharp lines of his body, and each motion is precise and needful and controlled. He kisses his mouth open and Corvo feels as if he is being studied, dissected, pulled apart.

“How long,” the Outsider asks, “can you stop time?”

Shove _hard_ against the wall and his thigh shoves between Corvo’s own, all purpose, and Corvo finds he cannot speak. The man does not seem to mind. He smiles into his mouth and his hand finds his left and yanks off the glove, closes tight around, and Corvo _hisses_ as the mark there flares bright and hot as a branding-iron fire.

Time shivers around them and then is still, so very still.

“I do hope it’s a long time,” the Outsider murmurs, a thread of amusement in his voice. “For your sake.” And then his mouth is on his again. Corvo shudders and arches up, the hand that isn’t trapped in the Outsider’s own splayed flat against the wall.

He does not taste of paint. He does not taste of blood. He tastes of nothing, and of a man, flesh and teeth that _bite_ , tongue that is so _clever_ in his mouth, and yet Corvo cannot shake the feeling that if he opens his eyes he will find that he is nothing at all in truth. Only a shadow. The lines of his body fit so _exactly_ against his own, bone to bone and skin to skin. It is as if he is a mirror. An idea.

It is as if the man is a hole into which he can fall.

And he does. Exquisitely. The Outsider tastes of nothing and flesh and shadow and sea, things unreal, and Corvo drowns into his mouth because to do otherwise would be impossible. He takes the stiffness in his bones and tries to forge it into need; tries, so hard, to take hold of the panic dancing over his skin and turn it into heat. Tries to forget the urge to fear, to shout, to run.

Time is still around them as in the eye of a storm. He has no other option, and so he forces himself to forget that he wants one. It is not as difficult as he would like.

Tongue in his mouth. Hand tracing so light down his front, low. Leg pressed carefully hard between his own, and the Outsider smiles and bites at his lip, eyes brilliant and bright as stars – and Corvo groans aloud.

“Good,” the man says quietly. He snakes a hand between their bodies, finds the shape of him through the fabric, traces, studies the way Corvo shudders and the way his hips press forward. His head is tilted to one side. His fingers are so precise as they find the ties of Corvo’s trousers, slip inside, and the sound he makes is sharp and sudden and _obscene –_

“ _Good.”_

And Corvo tries to say something, anything, but all that comes out is a strangled whine.

The Outsider chuckles. Low delighted sound. Soft as the waves on the sand, soft as the breath of a dying man. He turns Corvo around, positions him so that his hands are flat against the wall before him to hold him up. When Corvo rests his head against the stone for a moment he finds that it is shocking cool on his skin. He is _shivering_. The Outsider’s body is bent over his, hips seated against him. Heat. Sharp bone. And there is a moment of cold down his spine and utter disorientation when he finds himself pressing back against them and finds that there is –

This is only a _shadow_ in the shape of a man –

But the shadow in the shape of a man has a hand curled loose and easy around his cock, and he _moves_ – and it is suddenly impossible to think. Or care. Even though he should. Corvo makes a soft and broken sound. There is a feverchill racing over his skin, hot and cold at once, and all the urge to pull away seems to belong to another man.

“You are _mine,_ my dear,” the Outsider murmurs. His voice is even as ever. He nips at the nape of his neck. “Look at you. So lovely when you’re bent toward a single point.” Clever, purposeful fingers on his cock, now light, now steady, so that Corvo does not know how to _move_ and must bend toward him as if he is the tide. “All the violence and want in you is to _protect_. And you will protect her from me. You _will_. You will whip this city into fear once again. I am not something that can be torn apart or burned down or denied.”

Delicate line traced down the underside of his cock and his hips snap forward and it is not enough, not _enough_ , and the shudder that goes through him is half desire and half as cold as frozen time. Corvo must try a few times before he can gasp out a word. “Why?”

“Why you?” Laugh ghosting over his skin. “Because you caused such chaos for me. It was the most fun I’ve had in years.”

And there is a reply, somewhere in Corvo’s throat, tangled up with all the _horror_ and the _want_ ; but the Outsider’s teeth set against his throat, again, work at that bruising mark, and the hand on his cock works at him unceasing, and the only reply that Corvo can muster is a _cry_ that tears from him as if this is his death.

*****

The mark on his hand prickles and burns as he pulls the glove on with shaking fingers – but time holds. The guests do not move. The dust motes do not reach the floor. Emily remains frozen standing before her throne, face ghost-pale –  but for all that, she is untouched. Corvo would murmur a prayer in thanks, but the only creature he knows to pray to is the one who stands before him.

The Outsider is calm and unruffled as if nothing has passed at all.

There is a mess of white on his hand, shining as white paint. He inspects it, casual, flicks out the tip of his tongue to taste a bit before wiping the rest on his coat. His eyes are unreadable and dark. They flick to Corvo only once. It is as if this is nothing.

(Corvo supposes, for a being that tastes of death and time and the sea and that wants nothing and everything in return, that it is.)

“Have a care with Curnow,” says the Outsider, mildly. “He’s thinking of speaking with the High Overseer tonight. It could make things difficult for you.”

Corvo stares at him as all the varied implications of this branch out and fill the air between them, cold as spreading ice against his too-hot skin.

And then the Outsider is gone.

\- And time and light and color and sound rush back into the world at once. All in a wave. All the guests snap back to life, and Emily’s scream from forever ago pierces through the air.

*****

It is only an instant before Curnow finds him.

“What happened -?!” he begins – and stops. The words are dead in his mouth. His eyes pass over Corvo’s disheveled hair and the marks beginning to show at his throat. The bruise there is already as dark as the curse that Curnow breathes of _Outsider’s Eyes._

Corvo moves before he can think. The mark on his hand flares bright. He flows forward and inside the frame and bone and body of the man who stands before him.

It is an attempt to get out of his skin.

It is an attempt to be _interesting_.

He feels sickness curling in his chest, sharp and sour, but he tells himself that the sickness is Curnow’s and not his own. He walks the man through the chaos of guests milling about in confusion, of Emily searching for him – he walks him out the door, and up the stairs, and up and up and up.

He walks him to his room at the top of the tower.

 _The only violence in you is to protect_ , the Outsider had said; and this is what he thinks of. Emily needs him. He cannot protect her with rumors of _witchwork_ swirling about him, with the mark on his hand, with a brand on his face. He cannot protect her from a being with black eyes if he is no longer there.

They have had a year of peace at the tower. It seems that year was too long.

The walls of his own room at the top of Dunwall Tower are tight and close around him as a cell, but he tells himself that that is only Curnow’s body rebelling against his own. And when he sees the man’s eyes in the mirror, and when those eyes are dark and hollow, he tells himself that it is only a figment of the possession. He reminds himself, fiercely, that this man bears no brand from the Outsider in mark or bite or bruise upon his skin.

He walks Curnow up to the windowsill where the sea crashes far below. And he throws himself backwards out of his body. And then he throws him forward.

And as the man tumbles wildly through empty air, Corvo presses a hand to the side of his neck and thinks of teeth that came so close to piercing his skin.

And as the body hits and breaks upon the rocks below in a smear of red for all to see, he thinks of _chaos_ , and his mask that fits like a second face, and black eyes watching in the dark.


End file.
